


Any Fin Goes

by vextant



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Can They Steal It?, Crack, Gen, Heist, Humor, Inspired by a News Story, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 01:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15546861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vextant/pseuds/vextant
Summary: “So,” says Bruce, unfolding his hands to set them palms-down on the tabletop. He’s not clenching his fists, which is good, but his voice is disturbingly even and devoid of all emotion — which is so, so bad. “Are we going to talk about the shark?”Natasha, filing her nails on Tony’s other side, waits the perfect amount of time to ask, “What shark?”At the same time, Clint says definitively, “No we are not.”Bruce sighs.--Sam, Clint, and Bucky steal a shark. That's it. That's the whole story.





	Any Fin Goes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deceptivesoldier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deceptivesoldier/gifts), [glasscaskets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasscaskets/gifts).



> This fic was heavily enabled by deceptivesoldier and glasscaskets. They're both great people and great cheerleaders and are to thank for all the best jokes.
> 
> Working Titles: The Gang Steals a Shark, Sharkfic (Hoo Ha Ha)
> 
> Based on [this very real newsstory](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/stolen-shark-aquarium-san-antonio.html).

**Team Meeting, Avengers Tower**

Bruce must’ve gotten there first, because he sits at the head of the table with his hands folded in front of him like an especially displeased middle school principal. The rest of the Avengers are gathered around. Tony’s on his left, nearest the door and always looking like he’s halfway out. Steve sits on the right, back to the wall, spine straight like a ramrod.

Sam is sitting between Steve and Clint, who has his feet up on the table. He’s currently looking at his phone and resolving to stay silent about the whole affair. Can’t get busted for what you don’t know anything about.

“So,” says Bruce, unfolding his hands to set them palms-down on the tabletop. He’s not clenching his fists, which is good, but his voice is disturbingly even and devoid of all emotion — which is so, _so_ bad. “Are we going to talk about the shark?”

Natasha, filing her nails on Tony’s other side, waits the perfect amount of time to ask, “What shark?”

At the same time, Clint says definitively, “No we are not.”

Bruce sighs.

—

**Two Days Prior, Central Park Aquarium**

“How easy do you think it would be to just take one?” Clint says.

They’re sitting bathing in the light of the big tank, Sam and Clint— it takes up the whole room and more besides, wrapping over visitors in a tall arc and built to mimic a coral reef in the Indo-Pacific. The kids love it.  
  
Sam blinks, because he’s not sure he understands what Clint’s saying. “You want to take a-” He lowers his voice, glances around, “Take a _kid_?!”

“Jesus, _no_.” Clint shakes his head and gestures to the tank. “A fish or something. How easy do you think it is?”

“What d’you wanna just nab a fish for?”

“Gotta be one of the big ones to be worth it.” Barnes suddenly says from behind both of them. Sam jumps.

Barnes has one of the “spotting guides” in his hands, laminated papers with big glossy photos held together by a binder ring. He has it flipped open to the “Sharks are our Friends!” page.

“Hell yeah my man, go big or go home.” Clint says, holding out his fist. Barnes pounds it lightly— he’s wearing leather gloves and one of those big work jackets that are quilted on the inside, which typically makes him look like a shady out-of-work estate gardener, but it’s nearing fall so he can kind of almost _maybe_ get away with it now.  
  
Regardless, Sam is still ashamed to be seen with either of them. (Clint’s own t-shirt reads “Fish are Friends, Not Food” and his jeans are ripped from seam to seam in both knees. He said he wanted to dress for the occasion.)

“What would either of you even do with a fish?” Sam crosses his arms. Barnes plants his heavy, broody, 21st-century-Thoreau-looking ass right in between him and Clint. Clint moves for him and leans over to eye the guide. Sam stays right where he is.  
  
Neither of them look like they’d even considered the aftermath of such a heist. Barnes looks up from the guide to stare into the tank, plotting like he’s some kind of fish-chess grandmaster.

“We should keep it.” Clint says with a grin. “Tony’d roll with it.”

Sam scoffs. “The hell? No he wouldn’t. That man throws fits over the drink coasters matching the tables and has a longer skincare regimen than the rest of us put together. If you throw him off his groove even a little, he starts screaming like a banshee.”

Barnes huffs softly. Belatedly, Sam realizes it was supposed to be a chuckle. “Suppose we could . . not tell Stark at all.”

“ _Yeeess_ !” Clint whispers.  
  
“I refuse to be a part of this. What even made you think of it?”  
  
“Just thinking about the biggest thing I’ve ever lifted. Not lifted, but like, _lifted_ lifted. I’ve never five-finger discounted a shark before.”

“I don’t think that’s a verb,” says Barnes.

“Give me that.” Sam snatches the guide out of Barnes’ hands and skims down the list. “Which one were you even looking at?”

Without even a glance, Barnes reaches over and taps the bottom of the list. A blacktip reef shark. Five to seven feet long, twenty to thirty pounds. Sam looks up to scan the tank— there’s tropical fish, bright and colorful, tons of coral and other critters scattered about in the sand. There’s so much to look at that Sam very nearly just forgets what he’s looking for.

“Ooh.” Clint chuckles. “There’s a couple.”

Sam turns to see what Clint’s seeing. There’s several, about four or five of them all swimming in a pack near the back of the tank, making lazy circles around what looks like an entry point for a diver. “Looks like it’s close to feeding time.”  
  
“I think we might need a little more than five fingers,” says Barnes.

—

**Present Day, Avengers Tower**

The room is nearly silent, except for the soft tapping of Natasha typing away on her phone. Sam has a long-winded but surprisingly strong theory that she runs one of those highly specific superhuman “meta” blogs. Sightings, stats, who would win in a fight, that kind of thing. He’s never caught her right out, but she has to be up to something, and it’s not like she has a twitter. Does she? Suddenly he has a strong suspicion about his own followers — the best fans in the land, thank you very much — but it’s not something he could quite put his finger on. Who knows what Natasha does on Natasha’s time. It’s one of the great mysteries of the Tower.

Bruce is pinching the bridge of his nose with his glasses in his other hand. “It’s not like— It can’t have just _appeared_ , guys. In a huge tank with the correct chemical balances and a feeding schedule taped to the side?”

The schedule had been Barnes’ idea, actually. After they’d established that they could, in fact, steal a shark right out of an aquarium and get away with it, he’d taken it upon himself to prioritize its health. Turns out blacktip reef sharks are _not_ blacktip sharks — how many kinds of sharks could there be, anyway?! Before two days ago, Sam could name _maybe_ four that he’d learned in middle school science. They live in warm, tropical water and circle fish like piñatas before striking. And — as Barnes in particular learned — they can leap right the fuck out of the water.

Barnes himself is sitting at the other end of the table. His arm had been taken off for repairs, which was probably the most incriminating thing besides the shark itself, but he’s kept his face neutral through the whole affair. Sam doesn’t think he’s even listening.

“We know you stole the shark.” Natasha says. It’s definitive, and she’s looking right at Clint. That’s fine, let him take the blame. “The aquarium posted about it this morning. What I want to know is how you did it?”

“How did you get away with it?” Bruce says, and it’s a little loud.

Tony looks concerned, but not too much. “Yeah, that’s my question. How did you, a) nab a shark in broad daylight in a busy aquarium, b) smuggle said five-foot carcharhinidae out of a busy aquarium, disappointing dozens of kids in the process, and also c) why?”

The room goes silent. The tension, as they say in stories much more serious than this, is palpable.

Barnes chooses that moment to finally speak up. “Most of it was Wilson’s idea.”

“What the hell, man?” Sam can’t help the outburst. As stupid as it sounds, he’d thought the betrayal would’ve come from Clint first.

Then Clint says, “Yeah, Sam actually helped us with our costumes. Uniforms. And he wrestled the thing to help get it strapped in.”

“What?” Bruce is probably going to end up with a migraine after this.

Clint cracks his knuckles and clasps his hand in front of him with a toothy grin, “Allow me to explain.”

—

**Yesterday, Central Park Aquarium**

“They’re supposed to just jump out, right?” Sam says with his arms crossed. The three of them are standing on one of the catwalks above the big tank with a couple of dead fish that Barnes has snatched from a bucket. He’s the one who got them all back here—turns out that you can pretty much get anywhere dressed in coveralls and a baseball cap. That, and the dude just straight up looks like a janitor.

“Well, somebody’s still gotta grab it. It’s not like it can just walk out with us.” Clint is squatting right near the edge of the grates. There’s no railings; Sam fights a strong urge to just push him in and be done with it. “Wilson, c’mere and dangle one of those fish.”

“Hell no.”

He and Clint are both wearing t-shirts tucked into dark blue cargo pants and heavy steel-toe boots. The pants came right out of those plastic bags they sell them in at The Uniform Store™ and it’s been a long time since Sam’s had to break a pair like this in, which means they are _supremely_ itchy.

Technically, if a kid stood too close to the glass below them, they’re pretty obvious to spot. Luckily there’s a touch tank set up out on the floor today, so almost all the kids and their exasperated parents are gathered over on the other side.

Barnes is the only one of them with a proper disguise. Sam and Clint have no sunglasses, no ballcaps— they’re practically exposed. It’s a wonder they didn’t get recognized. The other two being incognito in plain sight doesn’t bother Sam, hell, they’re both professional spies and shit, but he doesn’t know how he feels about being an unrecognizable Avenger. Damn. Does no one even see the _one_ handsome black man on the team?

Is it the goggles?

“Lemme try,” says Barnes, and leans over the edge gripping one of the poor dead feeder fish by the tail.

It all happens so fast that Sam barely keeps his feet.

One of the sharks breaches and closes its jaws around Barnes’ _whole-ass arm_ , missing the fish entirely. Clint scuttles back, almost too far and Sam has to step in to keep him from tumbling ass over teakettle into the tank and ruining the whole operation.

Barnes makes a strange growl/huff combo low in his throat. The shark is thrashing wildly, its tail skimming the top of the water and splashing Sam’s boots. It seems panicked, more surprised than anything that is has all that power behind its bite and it just went and got itself stuck to the most pain-immune man on the planet. Its friends are circling just below the surface, waiting for Barnes to drop the fish.

Instead, Barnes swings it so that its strange, wiggly body is dripping right onto the catwalk.

“Get it off me,” he says calmly.

“Fucking _Christ_ ,” Clint stands and reaches for the heavy gloves he had in his back pocket, “You’re lucky it only got your metal arm.”

Barnes scoffs like his mother’s just been gravely insulted. “Yeah, _lucky_.”

The shark almost looks like a toy made of smooth grey rubber— except for the fact that it’s still writhing. It adjusts its grip on Barnes’ arm, teeth squealing against the metal. Sam swears he sees Barnes wince.

“We should call him Chompers.” The joke’s out of Sam’s mouth before he can stop himself.

Barnes isn’t amused. The shark doesn’t seem to be enjoying this much either— the only big, bug eye that’s facing Sam is trying to track him and the beady blackness with the great view of very, _very_ sharp teeth is rather unsettling.

Clint chuckles. “Wilson, if you shimmy on down the ladder there, Barnes can dangle him over and I can try and pry him off.”

Sam’s body goes on automatic, heading over to the ladder before he actually thinks through what Barton’s suggesting. “And what, catch it?”

“Well, yeah. How else are we going to get him down there?”

“ _Wilson_ ,” growls Barnes. He’s doing that creepy thing where he’s not even moving his lips but Sam can still make out every letter. It echoes around them. A door opens in the distance and the tension dials right up to eleven.

“ _Alright_.” Sam says in as aggressive a whisper as he can muster, and quickly slides down the ladder to where their getaway awaits. He looks back up, holding out his arms, and mutters to himself, “Not exactly how I wanted to go.”

Barnes unceremoniously sticks the beast over the edge. It’s lost a lot of its fight, so now it resembles a slightly animated rubbery sack of potatoes. Sam watches as Clint, with no hesitation, shoves his hands right into the shark’s fucking mouth and starts to pull. Salt water drips into his eye.

“C’mon,” Clint grunts, or at least Sam thinks it’s Clint until he looks closer and only sees Barnes’ mouth moving ever so slightly. “C’mon, Sharky Mc Bites a Lot.”

Sam blinks. “What?”

“I said he’s got a lot of bite,” hisses Barnes.

“Alright, I’ve got him.” Clint says. He pauses and looks down. “Ready Wilson? Three- two- ope!”

It almost falls in slow motion, blotting out the warehouse lights like the world’s weirdest eclipse. Sam remembers to relax his knees as the last second. He braces himself for a ton of bricks, like catching Steve out of the air when the big idiot does his daily leap of faith off a fucking skyscraper, but the shark is much lighter than he expects and lands almost perfectly in his arms.

They both freeze for a second, still braced, unsure of what to do. Then it starts _wiggling_. It’s like trying to hold on to a big, wet, rubber teddy bear that also wants literally anything else than for you to be touching it. It snaps at him, or tries to, first to one side then the other, but because it’s a shark and thus doesn’t really have a neck to speak of, Sam thinks he’s relatively safe.

Now he’s just gotta get it strapped in.

—

 

**Today, Avengers Tower**

“I thought you’d gotten it stuck some kind of wood chipper when you brought it down,” Bruce is saying to Barnes, “But after it ripped your arm to shreds, what made you think ‘ _yes, I think I’d like to continue with this abduction’_?”

Barnes weighs his answer like he’s actually considering it as a question and not just an outburst. “Well. Steve was already waiting for us outside.”

“ _Steve_ was there?!”

Tony, for the first time in this whole damn meeting, actually puts his phone down and leans across the table with his arms crossed as he eyes the man in question. “And what was Steve doing there?”

Sam feels uncomfortable just sitting _next_ to Steve, and all those eyes aren’t even on him. Steve himself just kind of nonchalantly scans the room. He has that “Captain America is Unimpressed” look on his face, but there’s that devilish little sparkle in his eyes that almost always spells trouble.

“Well,” says Steve. “Somebody had to drive.”

—

**Yesterday, Central Park Aquarium**

Sam is soaking wet and _pissed_ about it. These other two layabouts took their sweet-ass time climbing down the ladder and left him to wrestle a fucking five-foot shark onto a stretcher _by himself_ , cover it with the blanket and strap it down. It’s still wiggling underneath, which would normally be freaking Sam out, but right now he’s just too _soaking fucking wet_ to care.

Barnes just straight-up left and walked right past him, which was part of the plan but _still_ . Sam flicked some of the disgusting salt water at him— fish _piss_ in that shit— but he just kept walking. Sam resolves to kill him in his sleep later.

“Not so bad, right?” Clint’s heavy boots hit the ground beside him. “You ready for this?”

“This is some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever been a part of.” Sam mutters.

Clint chuckles and takes up one side of the stretcher. “It’s already been out six minutes, we really gotta go.”

Together, they turn and aim right for the double doors leading back into the public part of the aquarium. Sam personally gets a lot of satisfaction ramming them open.

The crowd is bigger than than he remembers them being, but they have the same reaction that every public does when they spot two EMTs and a loaded stretcher— stare slack-jawed and don’t do a damn thing close to moving.

“Get outta the way!” Clint says. He’s nearer to the shark’s head, guiding their direction with one hand and holding the other out to ask people to step back. If even one person looks too closely at their charge, it’s all over. “We’ve got a very sick, uh. Boy! Here.”

Some of the kids gasp and look to their friends; the adults scan through their groups to make sure that everyone is accounted for.

“Move!” shouts Sam. It’s a little rough and loud for him, but it gets people to listen.

They’re out of the room with the large tank— it’s just the lobby with the big doors on the other side. Daylight, bright and clear.

Some hotshot security guard, pimply and nineteen and probably making a whole fifteen cents above minimum wage, steps right in front of them with a concerned smile. “Everything okay? Can I help you guys out somehow?”

“You can get out of our way.” Sam snaps. He’s _this close_ to losing it entirely.

The guard takes a step closer to him, with all the swagger of an first year undergraduate with a wrestling scholarship. “Sir-”

“It’s—uh, sorry, kid, it’s his— his son. Eg...bert.” Clint would almost be thinking quick on his feet if he wasn’t stumbling over so many words. “He really needs help, we’ve got to go.”

The kid narrows his eyes at Clint. Then, _right fucking then_ , the shark twitches, and its tail throws a bit of the blanket off the end. To his credit, Clint puts it back in place without even looking. The movement of his hand makes the guard look down, and suddenly it’s like the kid remembers that he’s talking to EMTs. “EMTs”. Whatever. They’re both big guys, they look real enough to him. Got the big white letters on the back of their shirts and everything.

“Right, sorry! Sorry, sorry.” He steps out of their way, even going so far as the open the door for them.

“ _Egbert_?” Sam hisses. Clint ignores him.

Barnes is waiting in the open back doors of an ambulance, backed up on the sidewalk in the front of the aquarium. He’s got the arms of his coveralls tied around his waist so that the unconcerned passerby— this is New York City, if anyone gives a shit about this kind of stuff it means they’re getting paid— can see that he too has the letters E-M-T printed across the back of his long-sleeved shirt.

Once they clear the entryway, Barnes jogs over to Sam and Clint to help them collapse the stretcher and get it loaded. The shark wiggles again, and its strange rounded nose pokes out from the top of the light blue blanket like a rubbery baby alien.

“Time?” says Barnes.

Clint checks his watch. “Eight minutes.”

Sam steps into the back and swings the heavy doors closed. He hears the engine rumble into drive and feels it beneath his feet. Stumbling over to the little bench, he sinks into it with a sigh. “I can’t believe that worked.”

“Not out of the woods yet.” Steve says from the front. There’s a playful edge to his voice as he flips on the fake siren in their fake ambulance. They’re chugging along at a good enough pace that it must be pretty convincing to other drivers.

Sam almost has to do a double take that it’s really Steve under the ballcap, sunglasses, and mustache. “You really went all for it, didn’t you-u-u!”

Steve wrenches the wheel to the right and everything that isn’t tied down— including Sam and Clint— go tumbling. Sam manages to only tumble a step or two before they get straightened back out again.  
  
“Jesus, drive much? You heard of a turn signal?” Clint admonishes, but he chuckles when he climbs back into his seat. Sam watches him subtly buckle himself in.

“Must’ve been a recent invention.” Steve calls back.  
  
“He learned to drive on a Mack truck outside Strasbourg. They gave him a five minute rundown and just let him loose.” Barnes deadpans, and Sam can’t tell if he’s lying. He must’ve been buckled in already. “Don’t ever let him near a plane.”

Sam nods. “Copy that.”  
  
Steve laughs from the front and takes another sharp turn. The stretcher, which no one apparently locked down, tilts onto two wheels and the shark starts flipping out. One of its side fins slips out of the straps and makes a wet slapping noise as it tries to wriggle itself free.

“Whoa, boy. Whoa.” Sam says slowly— Clint and Barnes are staring at him, but he doesn’t know what else to do. There’s another turn, and the stretcher tilts again. “Whoa! Whoa, shhh, boy, you’re alright.”

Barnes looks at him and narrows his eyes in confusion. “It’s.. not a horse.”

“Should we spray water on him or something?” Clint asks. “Is he dying? Oh man, that would suck to have gotten so far and have him just die.”

Steve glances in the rearview. “He?”

“Clint named him Egbert.” Sam sighs.

Barnes breaks into an honest-to-God chuckle.

“We’re almost there,” says Steve.

A few more slightly-too-sharp turns and a couple real close calls with red lights later, they find out just how easy it is to drive a fake ambulance into the Avengers Tower garage. That is, it’s incredibly easy until the owner of Avengers Tower— and the man they all made a pact not to say a word to about this heist, see re: drink coasters and skincare regimens— Tony Stark is on his way out _just_ as they’re pulling in.

The Lambo-porsche-rarri— whatever it is, Sam doesn’t know cars— putters to a stop right beside them. The ambulance’s engine cuts off and they all stay dead silent. Even Steve sinks down in his seat a little bit.

Tony rolls down his window and shouts, “What the hell is this, some kind of joyride?”

Oh, God. Oh, Jesus, they’re really in for it now. Sam suddenly has a flash of regret for everything he’s ever done, up to and including the day he was born. Sorry, Mom and Dad.

Then Clint gets up and clambers to the shotgun seat. He opens the door and waves cheerfully. “Hey, Stark.”  
  
“ _Barton_?” Tony pulls his sunglasses like he’s surprised to see Clint in the front of the ambulance rather than strapped down in the back with more blood outside of him than in. Which, that’s fair.

“Yeah. So, we’re, uh, kind of on a tight schedule here. Did you do that thing I asked you?”

“What, the— the pool? Barton, you asked me _yesterday_. I thought it was a joke, ‘saltwater’s better for your skin’, why— what the hell did you do?”

“We took a shark from the aquarium.”

Sam’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. He watches Barnes grasp his broken arm with his good one like he’s about to rip it off out of pure frustration.

“Oh, awesome. So what, you need a tank or something? What species?”

“Blacktip... No, black tipped _reef_. They’re different, somehow. This one’s five foot long, about thirty pounds.”

“ _Awesome_.”

—

**Today, Avengers Tower**

“What I’m _trying_ to say,” says Bruce, clenching his fists tight as his sides, “Is that none of you did _any_ research before this— insane _heist_.”

“ _Successful_ heist.” Clint grins. He and Tony shoot finger guns at each other.

Sam sees Barnes roll his eyes at the other end of the table.

Bruce continues, “That shark’s been here less than twenty-four hours. It’s not eating, not responding to any kind of stimulation, none of that is a sign for any of you?!”

They all sit up in their seats. Especially Barnes, who’s been taking the survival of the shark _very_ personally after it earned his respect by nearly ripping his arm off, or something. Sam doesn’t really know why he’s so attached to it. It’s strangely endearing.

“Alright, lay it on us then, Dr. Banner,” Tony says, picking up his phone, “What’s wrong with Sharkbuck? Get it? Like Starbucks? Ah, WebMD says he has cancer.”

“First, the shark is female. And second, it’s _depressed_. Reef sharks are social animals, they hunt in packs and ‘hang out’ with friends, like humans do. She’s lonely.”

Sam shakes his head, “I’m not stealing another shark. I looked it up, that shit’s a felony.”

“Well, I’m not going to let her waste away into nothing because she misses her friends. Steve! I hope you still have the mustache handy.” Clint rubs his hands together.

“Nobody’s stealing another shark.” Tony says, final. The whole room looks at him with their eyebrows up, because it’s an uncharacteristically serious tone for him. “We’re going to buy another one off the internet, like normal people.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, thank you for reading!
> 
> If you liked the fic, you can like and/or reblog the tumblr post [here](https://vextant.tumblr.com/post/176577787356/any-fin-goes) if you're so inclined. You can also just come chat with me about sharks, Sam Wilson, or anything really :D


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